--- title: Bill Clinton Tells Jimmy Kimmel Life In Space Is Possible description: The former president weighs in on the existence of ET—and he's probably right canonical: https://time.com/48208/clinton-aliens-kimmel-space/ author: Jeffrey Kluger article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-04-03T20:05:14.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:01:28.459Z article:section: Science og:title: Clinton Tells Kimmel: ET is Real. He's Probably Right og:description: The former president weighs in on the existence of ET—and he's probably right og:url: https://time.com/48208/clinton-aliens-kimmel-space/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Clinton Tells Kimmel: ET is Real. He's Probably Right twitter:description: The former president weighs in on the existence of ET—and he's probably right twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Bill Clinton Is Right: There Are Aliens in Space > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Future Proof: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Future Proof is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. Making sense of the climate and energy economy. Future Proof examines the forces transforming energy and climate, and what those changes mean for business, technology, policy and the global economy. Senior correspondent Justin Worland goes beyond traditional climate coverage to connect the energy transition to the bigger decisions reshaping companies, markets and society. 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Future Proof is TIME's weekly climate and energy newsletter, written by senior correspondent Justin Worland. It connects the energy transition to the decisions reshaping business, technology, policy and markets. #### Where can I follow the energy transition as a business story? Future Proof covers climate and energy as an economic and business story rather than only an environmental one. It publishes every Friday and is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who writes Future Proof? Justin Worland, a senior correspondent at TIME and an award-winning climate journalist, writes Future Proof. #### Is Future Proof free? Yes. Future Proof is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-futureproof-2026q3/newsletters?i=2d94b60a-f039-4496-b885-467ecbef7c6e&cr=time-nl-futureproof-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Life in the Universe: Easy or Hard? [Watch (HLS stream): Life in the Universe: Easy or Hard?](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/MthT6LZ2.m3u8) (3:37)  _Published 2012-05-13. Are we alone in the Universe? According to TIME senior science editor, Jeffrey Kluger, recent discoveries suggest we're not_  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large Apr 3, 2014 8:05 PM UTC  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large Apr 3, 2014 8:05 PM UTC One of the good things about being an ex-President is that you get to say the kinds of things you could never say when you were still the most powerful person in the world. Take aliens—the space kind. Last night, during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel’s show, [the 42nd prez admitted](http://time.com/48132/bill-clinton-wouldnt-be-surprised-if-aliens-existed/) not only that when he was in the White House he ordered a review of all of the documents related to the long running rumors over aliens landing in Roswell, N.M. in 1947, but that he would not be surprised if we did eventually get a cosmic caller. “If we were visited someday I wouldn’t be surprised,” he said, “I just hope it’s not like [Independence Day](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116629/),” a reference to the 1996 movie in which aliens do land—and behave very, very badly. Has Clinton gone ’round the bend? Not a bit–depending on whether you subscribe to the life-is-easy or life-is-hard school of thought. Physicist, broadcaster and author [Paul Davies](http://cosmos.asu.edu/) of Arizona State University is one of the leading proponents of the we’re-all-alone camp, arguing in his aptly titled book _The Eerie Silence_ that biology emerging from dead chemicals was such a cosmic longshot that it’s entirely possible it happened only once, here. But that position is becoming increasingly untenable. First, there are about 300 billion stars in the Milky Way and our galaxy is one of at least 100 billion in the universe. So, as the overworked idiom goes, do the math. What’s more, ever since the Kepler Space Telescope was launched in 2009, close to 4,000 candidate planets have been discovered in the Milky Way and close to 1,000 have been confirmed. Planets aren’t the same as biology—witness Earth’s lifeless brothers and sisters in our solar system—but the increasingly evident presence of water and organic chemicals in asteroids, comets and throughout the interstellar medium suggests that the ingredients for life are everywhere. If that’s so, it may take little more than that chemistry plus some energy source (light or heat) plus time to cook up something living. Clinton may have had his political critics in his eight years in the White House, but science, in this case, appears to be on his side. ## Transcript [00:03] In the universe life is either very easy or very hard. [00:11] Hi, I'm Jeffrey Kluger and this is Time Science. [00:16] The camp that says life is easy. Suggests that whatever [00:19] happened on Earth, is easily replicate- able elsewhere [00:22] in space, if only because there are so many other stars [00:26] and now that the Kepler space telescope is looking for [00:28] planets, we know that there are many, many other [00:30] planets out there as well. If it could happen here, there [00:34] is no reason it couldn't there. Paul Davies, [00:38] the cosmologist at Arizona State University and the [00:41] author of the book, The Erie Silence, believes that life [00:45] is statistically just unlikely outside of Earth. Life [00:50] is too complex, Earth like planets are too rare, and no [00:53] matter how many stars there are in the Universe, when [00:56] you crunch the numbers, we're probably alone. I [01:01] think life is easy. I think with so many worlds out there, [01:04] and the basic chemistry so readily available, there will [01:08] be life on other worlds. It doesn't have to be intelligent [01:11] life, it may not rise above the level of microbes, but [01:14] from microbes we emerge. [01:18] So, at some point on some other planets, there can be [01:20] intelligent life as well. Now, [01:25] this is more than just probability at work. The complex [01:29] hydrocarbons and the mix of organic chemicals that [01:32] make us what we are, are in fact, very common in the [01:36] universe. The reason life began in the oceans on Earth [01:40] is because water is essential to life as we know it, and [01:43] also because water, at least on a planet in the [01:45] Goldilocks zone, not too hot, not too, too cold, can be [01:49] very warm and amniotic. That's a very nurturing [01:52] environment for life to evolve. We [01:56] now know that the universe is fairly awash in water. We [02:00] see water in interstellar space. We see it in interstellar [02:02] clouds. It's perhaps Jupiter's big moons that have the [02:06] most promise here. We see water on the surface and [02:09] beneath the surface of moons such as Europa, and [02:12] Gananee and Calisto, all of which are thought to be [02:15] able to keep water in a liquid state because of the [02:17] gravitational pulsing that warms their interior. It's a [02:21] little bit like. When you bend a wire hanger back and [02:23] forth and it becomes too hot to touch. Of [02:30] course, it's also possible that there are [02:32] extraterrestrials and we're it. Plenty [02:36] of people believe in the theory of panspermia, the idea [02:39] that incoming asteroids from deep space carry the [02:43] organic compounds that first seeded the earth. And [02:47] there are some people who even suggest that [02:49] Earthlings are in fact, Martians who originated as single [02:53] celled organisms on Mars, rode to Earth aboard rocks, [02:56] blasted off of Mars, and then populated our planet. [03:02] There's more and more evidence that Mars was once a [03:04] warm, wet, watery place, and some life that evolved [03:08] then may still be living beneath the surface. If [03:13] we go there, and we find it, maybe we're just coming [03:17] home. 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